


years long gone

by EverShadow



Category: Happiest Season (2020)
Genre: F/F, Forced Outing, Pre-Canon, Teen Romance, mentions of connor/harper, teen intimacy (nothing explicit)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:21:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27947480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EverShadow/pseuds/EverShadow
Summary: Riley was thirteen when she figured out she liked girls, and her best friend Harper was right there next to her figuring it out too.
Relationships: Harper Caldwell/Riley Johnson
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19





	years long gone

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to explore Riley and Harper's relationship deeper, so that's how this started. Might be updated sporadically.

"I swear, honey, you'll make friends in no time," Riley's mother reassured her from the driver's seat. Riley folded her arms around the monogrammed blue jean LL Bean backpack on her lap and hugged it as close as she would a treasured bear.

"I don't want new friends," she whispered into the material. Her mother pulled the car over and placed her hands on the top of the wheel, resting her forehead against the back of her palms. She took a deep breath and turned around.

"Riley, honey, you know if I could keep you in your old school, I would. But Tom lives here, and..."

"Why can't I just live with dad?" Riley snapped. She gripped the jean material tightly. Her mother withdrew, hurt showing plain on her face.

"Honey, we talked about this. Dad gets you during the summer, the fun days, and you're stuck with me on the not fun days."

"I want to move back. I want you and dad to get back together, and for you to leave that stupid Tom." Tears pricked the edges of Riley's eyes, and she buried her face into the back of her school bag. Her mother's mouth opened and closed, not sure what to say.

"Honey, did you talk to Dr. Worther about this?" At the mention of her therapist's name, Riley's head shot up, and her face contorted into an expression of disgust.

"Why would I tell her anything?" She sneered.

"Because that's her job!" Her mother's voice pitched high, a sure sign that her patience wore thin. "We pay her to listen to you and to help you get through this."

"Yeah, you have to pay her to listen to me because you won't." Riley grabbed the door handle and forced the door open. "I'll walk the rest of the way," she snapped and slammed the door shut so hard, the entire car shook. She ignored her mother's muffled protests that morphed into shouts to get back in the car when she rolled the window down. Riley walked fast, then broke into a sprint when she heard her mother throw the car into drive to chase after her.

Riley had every intention of going to school, but being in that car one second longer would've made her say some things that would've gotten her grounded for at least a week. She couldn't take that chance, not when being grounded meant she couldn't call her old friend on the phone. She took off down a side street, in the general direction of her school. She was sure she'd find it; follow the stream of kids and buses, it was going to lead her there eventually.

But her mother was waiting at the front doors, much to her dismay. Worry and fury mixed in a crevice on her forehead, melting to condensed anger when they made eye-contact.

"RILEY BENNETT!" Her mother screamed. Riley tried her best to look away, pretend that she wasn't the target of her mother's wrath. Other kids stopped. Some hid their giggles behind their hands, some openly pointed and laughed. Her mother forcefully grabbed her by the wrist. "Look at me when I'm talking to you, young lady!"

"Mom, stop it!"

"If you  _ ever, EVER,  _ pull something like that again I swear..." And then realizing that not only were the kids paying attention but adults too, her mother let her wrist go. "We will talk about this when you get home." Riley mentally winced. That usually meant about an hour of screaming, an hour of her mother crying, as was the usual these days, and a healthy dose of Tom shaking his head at her saying, "I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed." She hated his attempt at diplomacy. A part of her wanted him to lose his temper for once, to yell at her like her dad sometimes did. But his "positive reinforcement" parenting left her annoyed and furious most of the time. Her mother straightened and put on a fake smile.

"Have a good first day of school, honey," she said. Around her, Riley could hear the mocking giggles and echoes of her mother's statement. Her cheeks burned as she pushed past and into the cold, white, unfamiliar hallways of her new school.

If she had wanted to enter her new school anonymously and leave just as quietly, that hope had flown out the slightly cracked homeroom window as soon as she walked in. At least three sets of kids saw her and dissolved into giggles. She brushed her long hair across her shoulders to hide her face as she took a seat down where a neatly folded piece of paper said, "Riley Bennett." She scowled at the last name and crumpled it up. Right up front and center, just where she least wanted to be.

Their teacher, a man with slicked-back black hair in his mid-thirties, walked in with an overenthusiastic pep in his step.

"Morning, homeroom! Please have a seat in your assigned seats, my name is Mr. Carol, and I am happy to be your homeroom teacher for the year!" He bounced when he walked, and had it not been for an atlas on the wall and a globe on his desk and a poster with all the flags of the world, she would've guessed him to be an English teacher rather than a geography teacher. She knew it before he said her name when taking attendance. She knew it because she knew her mother had registered her under Tom's last name, not her dad's, and she waited with gritted teeth to hear it.

"Riley Bennett?" Mr. Carol glanced up from his sheet. "Everyone give a warm welcome to Riley Bennett, it's her first day here!" Amid the snickers of her classmates next to her, the rest of the homeroom clapped unenthusiastically but obediently. She could tell that Mr. Carol did not appreciate the lackluster response with the way his jaw set.

"It's not Bennett," she heard herself say in direct juxtaposition of her desire to make as few ripples in her new school as possible.

"Pardon?"

"It's Johnson. My name is Riley Johnson." Mr. Carol looked back down at his sheet of paper. The murmurs around her grew, and she looked down at the desk to avoid meeting anyone's gaze.

"It says Bennett, but I will make a note of it, thank you!" He said with a forced smile. Through his rushed calling of the next name, she could tell that he already regretted having her in his homeroom.

The rest of the morning was more of the same. Every teacher called her Bennett, and she corrected every one of them. It seemed to make each one more uncomfortable than the next, which in turn made her want to run out of the school and never come back. Somehow she made it to lunch, and by then, she could already hear whispers of "that's the weird girl with the two last names." She sat alone at lunch. It wasn't so bad, really, she'd expected, no, she'd wanted this. She already had friends back at her old school, and she hated this one already. No one back home called her Riley Bennett. Even when it became common knowledge about her parents' separation, even when her mother got remarried, they still called her Riley Johnson. But of course, no one here had that history.

Tom Bennett picked her up after school since she knew her mother worked late on Mondays and Wednesdays. She shuffled into the car, refusing to look her step-father in the eye even though she caught him looking in the rearview mirror at her. They barely made it out of park mode before he asked,

"So, how was your first day?"

"Horrible, I want to go home," she responded candidly.

"I'm sorry to hear that, sweetie," she bristled at that pet name. Her father never called her sweetie, and the saccharine nickname made her gag. "Did you make any new friends?"

"No," she said curtly. She saw his mustache twitch slightly in...annoyance? Worry? Whatever it was, he could shove it.

"I'm sorry to hear that, Ri," Ri was almost as terrible as sweetie. It imparted some false sense of familiarity and kinship. "Well, first days are always the hardest. I'm sure tomorrow will be much better." He offered a small smile that Riley refused to return.

"When can I start taking the bus?" She asked.

"You'll have to talk to your mother about that. So, what do you want for dinner? I was thinking we could get some pizza, how does that sound?" Riley shrugged silently, which he did not see. "Ri?"

"Pizza's fine," she sighed.

They pulled into the driveway of their new house. The front yard needed work. Yellow, drought-stricken grass covered the lawn, and the decorative bushes required trimming. The exterior looked like every other house in the neighborhood - a far cry from her old house, which oozed comfort and home. Walking into the faux-grand entryway felt no less sterile than walking into a dentist's office. 

"Let's see," Tom muttered to himself, hefting a phonebook onto the counter. "Local pizza shops..." Riley took up a spot at the dining room table. She shifted a few half-full moving boxes to one side to create room enough for her to do her homework, taking particular time to arrange them, so they blocked Tom from view. She barely made it through three pages of her assigned five when the doorbell rang.

"Huh, can't be the pizza," Tom said as he hopped off his seat. Riley followed his path to the door. When he opened it, she saw what looked to be an entire family standing at their doorway.

"Hi! We saw you just moved in, we live just a few houses down and wanted to introduce ourselves!"

"Oh! Yes, come in, come in," Tom stepped aside to let them in, and Riley forced herself to focus on her homework. If she looked busy, maybe Tom would leave her alone.

"Riley! Riley, come over here!" No such luck. Riley rolled her eyes, set her pencil down, and trudged over.

"Tom," Tom shook the man's hand. "Tom Bennett. We just moved here from Maryland."

"Well, it's good to meet you, Tom. I'm Ted Caldwell, this is my wife Tipper," the mother of the family waved quickly. "And these are my lovely daughters. This is Sloane, our eldest, Jane, the middle child, and Harper, our youngest." Tom put his hand on Riley's shoulders, and she tried to shrug off his grip.

"This is Riley," he announced. Riley stared at a water stain on the floor. She noted that he didn't call her his daughter.

"So, is it just you two?" Tom asked with concern in his voice Riley couldn't quite figure out.

"Oh, no, my wife Laurel is working tonight, so it's just me and the kiddo."

"Oh, a mother and still in the workforce!" Tipper laughed robotically. "That must be so hard on the family."

"How old are you, Riley?" Ted asked, abruptly changing the topic.

"She's ten," Tom replied.

"I can answer for myself," Riley muttered. One of the girls giggled, and she couldn't tell which girl went with which name since they all looked so similar, like one of those catalog ads for winter apparel.

"Ten! Why that's the same age as Harper here." Ted placed a hand on one of the girls. She wore jean overalls and white sneakers, and she had been the one to giggle earlier. Her face looked familiar in a way Riley cared not to remember. "Do you have any classes together?"

"No-"

"Yeah, we have math together," Harper replied. Ah, Riley thought, that's where I've seen her.

"Daddy, I'm bored, and Mr. Bufoneous Unicorn is at home waiting to be rescued from the evil Catty Claws." The middle one (Jane?) tugged at her dad's sleeve urgently. Ted shooed her off and cleared his throat.

"Math, what a subject," Ted said, completely ignoring Jane. "Well, we won't take up any more of your time. But you and the entire family should come by this weekend for dinner!"

"I think Laurel and I would like that very much. Riley too." He patted her on the head, messing up her hair. They said their goodbyes, though Riley only managed a slight grunt, and together, they watched the entire family make their way back up the hill to another cookie-cutter house just on the curve of their drive.

"You didn't tell me you made a friend already," Tom said with a smile.

"I didn't," Riley replied, shuffling back into the kitchen and resuming her homework. 


End file.
